Christmas cards 2008 …

ME Research UK Christmas cards for 2008 are now available. This year’s collection consists of ten attractive designs, all at very reasonable prices, and all profits will go towards vital ME research.

Have a look at the collection …..

Disease makes dubious doctor a believer …

By: YVONNE BETOWT, Times Staff Writer, The Huntsville Times,
yvonne.betowt@htimes.com  

“Before suffering illness Bryan Evans wasn’t sure CFS was real.
Dr. Bryan Evans used to enjoy playing volleyball at the gym with friends a couple times a week. The Huntsville family practice physician often felt sluggish after seeing between 30 to 40 patients a day at his southeast Huntsville office. But when he stepped onto the volleyball court, the adrenaline rush restored his energy.

Gradually, Evans was so tired and weak he could hardly get out of bed each morning. After a shower, he had to return to bed for about 30 minutes to muster enough energy to get dressed. He began cutting back his office hours, thus reducing his workload – and his income.

He and his wife had divorced, leaving him in a state of turmoil, emotionally and physically. Despite his vast knowledge of medicine, he was perplexed at what seemed to be a phantom illness.

Finally, Dr. Dan Prince, a rheumatologist in Gadsden whose wife has fibromyalgia, confirmed his suspicion…………

Never events …

By: JoNel Aleccia, Health writer, MSNBC.COM

Spurred by government and industry actions, hospitals in more states are vowing not to charge patients for so-called “never events,” such as operating on the wrong body part….

Is CBT for neurological illnesses a never event ????

CFS patients should not be blood donors and this is one reason why …

Source:The Alison Hunter Memorial Foundation

By: Professor K. De Meirleir, P. De Becker, I. Campine; Human Physiology and Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

The findings point towards a transmittable cause in this subset of CFS patients in which acute onset was temporally linked to blood transfusion.

As viruses and possibly other micro-organisms seem to be able to trigger an acute onset of CFS and the fact that RNaseL dysfunction seems to be preferentially related to CFS, it comes as no real surprise that receivers of a blood transfusion, often being in a weakened health status, can develop CFS.

We therefore would advise CFS patients not to be blood donors and secondly that the administration of blood transfusions has to be very carefully considered and only be given when strictly necessary and not as a standard procedure after e.g. the delivery of a baby.